Mavoix - French group uses sortition to select election candidates

[Disclaimer: the Sortition Foundation is non-partisan and does not endorse any political parties. This is published as an interesting experiment in the use of sortition in politics]

"Who's representing me the best?"

A group of friends began the collective #MAVOIX(meaning "my voice")in France in 2015- they all believed that the current form of ourrepresentativedemocracyhas failed us.

The idea was tobring together diversecitizens from differentbackgroundsto collaborate,discussand work out howto "hack" theAssemblée Nationaleby allowingeverydaycitizens toparticipate in the creation ofeverysinglelaw. After a first run at a local election in 2016, the goalwassettosend several deputies(Members of Parliament)toParliamentafterthe June 2017election.

To prepareforthe national electioncampaign, the collective worked for two years without any leadersor charismatic personalities.Decisionswere made horizontally,afterin depthdiscussions,always trying to find a consensus. If people disagreed, they could"fork" (a software development term), which meansboth options were tested.Soon afterwards,taking into accounttheresults of theexperiment,peoplecould decide which option(s) to drop and how to improve the one they kept.

This forking process was at the heart of the experimentalspirit of #MAVOIX: myriads of small actions, followed by sharing of what has been learnt.An onlineforum, local/national meetings andopen-source software were the tools usedto share know-how andto deliberate on any choicesto be made.

And because every contributorwasan expert in some area,theydevelopeda peer-to-peer process of teachingandlearning skills. For instance, students from the Political-Science University created a MOOC to help everybody understandthe actual duties and obligationsof anMP (Member of Parliament) during hisorherterm in office. In these wayscontributors couldhelp and volunteer andbringideasto resonatewiththe campaign.

Journalists were always welcome to watch any#MAVOIXdiscussion or event. However, they were notallowedto interview contributors individually (but couldsometimesinterview asmall group of contributors). This important choice was made to avoidthe appearance ofany"cult of personality" within#MAVOIX and any strugglesforindividualexposure.

Finally, the collectivedecided to run a campaign in 43 constituencies(out of577). There was 505 volunteers who applied to be candidates for the election with around 40% female and 60% male.

The candidates were then chosen by sortition(random selection)and genderbalance was ensured. The sortitionevent took place in Parison May 2017 and led by aprofessional court usher. In front of 304 people, 86 candidates were randomly selected (43 men and 43 women - one male and one female for each constituency) from the pool of volunteers. The use of sortitionallowed people to run asacandidates whatever their wealth or network, and itremovedall of the usual disputesand political factional infightingabout who should run as a candidate. It was an essential ingredient in making #MAVOIX a good place to contribute, with a high level ofsolidarity andcaring between people.Each of the 43 campaigns wasfinancedby individual citizens (and not by any political party).The #MAVOIX candidatesreceiveda total of about11000 votes from theFrench national election.

Eventhough nodeputies were elected, the collective enabledpeoplewithnoprofessional politicalexperience, withvariouspolitical views, to empower them,elves and create an unconventional campaign. The only ruleswereabout how the group shouldfunction (horizontality, nopersonality cults, caring for the other people in the group, dealing with media, etc). All otherchoices thatweremade were an experiment, withsomesuccesses and somesetbacks. It convinced theparticipants, and manyacknowledged it,thatthe experience has helped themdevelopin new ways whichwill feedintotheir furtherlives and activities, whateverthe area(political, social care, associations, entrepreneurship....).